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Canton Punch

A ginger-based punch made with water, sugar, Canton ginger, lemon juice, orange juice, and charged water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Canton Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil water, sugar, and Canton ginger for 20 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Add lemon juice and orange juice.

  2. Pour over a block of ice and add charged water before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp citrus juices.
Canton ginger
Infuses the syrup with its spicy, aromatic ginger flavor during boiling.
Lemon juice
Contributes acidity that brightens the punch and balances the sweetness.
Orange juice
Adds fruity sweetness and body to the citrus flavor.
Charged water
Adds effervescence, giving the punch a lively, bubbly texture.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, orange):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Peppermintfits less well
  4. Rosemaryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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